Vote 2016

Spero

President Barack Obama said today that Donald Trump is “unfit to serve as president,” while calling on Republicans to repudiate their nominee. Obama claimed that criticisms coming from the GOP “ring hollow” if its’ leaders support the Trump candidacy, especially since the dust-up between Trump and Pakistani-born lawyer, Khizr Khan, that began when Khan excoriated Trump at the Democratic National Convention.

“The question they have to ask themselves is: If you are repeatedly having to say in very strong terms that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him?” Obama said at a news conference.

When Khan openly questioned whether Trump had ever read the Constitution or had ever made any sacrifice for his country, Trump questioned in a subsequent interview why Khan’s wife had stood silently at her husband’s side. Democrats, Republican, progressives, and Muslim apologists assailed Trump in the aftermath. Trump was criticized for supposedly denigrating the Ghazala and Khizr Khan, who are the parents of U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan. Capt. Khan died twelve years ago defending his unit during a car-bomb attack in Iraq. At no time has Trump expressed any doubts about the heroism and national service rendered by Capt. Khan.

Obama also said today that Trump is “woefully unprepared to do this job,” alleging that the billionaire developer and businessman has no knowledge about Europe, the Middle East and Asia. “This isn’t a situation where you have an episodic gaffe. This is daily,” Obama said. “There has to be a point at which you say, this is not somebody I can support for president of the United States, even if he purports to be a member of my party. The fact that that has not yet happened makes some of these denunciations ring hollow.”

Obama spoke at a joint White House news conference alongside Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore. "There has to come a point at which you say: 'Enough'," Obama said.